Local area networks have become very important in solving communication needs where a large number of remote processing devices are connected over a common communication channel to a host processor. As the operating speed of the remote devices increases, there arises a need to check the operation of the system. One test instrument that is used in this respect is a datascope which displays the binary characters being transmitted over the communication channel associated with the local area network. The datascope is also used to detect problems occurring in the network such as data collisions that occur between two or more remote devices attempting to gain control of the communication channel at the same time. The number of collisions occurring affect the response time of the network. The datascope can also be used to identify the amount of data that a certain remote device is transmitting. Present day datascopes are limited in their response time and therefore cannot display the data being transmitted by a device operative over a high speed local area network system.